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Wandering the numerous halls of Interzoo 2014 is intense. It requires endurance, comfortable footwear and ton of caffeine to take it all in. But once we found DeJong Marinelife’s booth among the chaos, we found ourselves in fish-geek heaven. Unlike Jake’s excellent experience seeing Apolemichthys kingi at Aliwal Shoal, my own trip a few years earlier turned up no sightings. And so here I was with a beer in hand, seeing my first kingi in a rainy Nuremberg. Of course, for many, the kingi took a back seat to its tankmate — The Holy Grail Peppermint Angel (Paracentropygeboylei). Tucked away in a quiet area of the booth with dimmed lighting, the angels hung out in a low-stress setup. White leather couches in front of the tank made for a nice spot to take these two beauties in. It was really interesting to witness how much bolder the kingi was in relation to the peppermint angel. The peppermint was more reclusive, occasionally grazing the rocks in the foreground.

If these rare fish didn’t satiate someone, then DeJong’s reef display surely would. It was easily the best reef display at all of Interzoo. The aquascaping was superb, with some really unique corals glowing under two bank’s of AI LEDs. Then there’s the fish in this reef. Rare fish everywhere! Centropygeinterruptus darting through the same set of corals as a Tigerpyge. Numerous hybrid Centropyges also surrounded them. How about a nice Feminus wrasse for good measure?

The real showcase in this reef display was the harems of Pseudanthias calloura. Seeing the male calloura flash put Jake in a trance. It was an overload of color, rarity and diversity.

And the sheer health and robust appearance of all the fish and corals in a system that was setup in a day clearly tells you the story on DeJong. They are class act operation and they know how to handle livestock with respect. We will keep revisiting their setup throughout the conference to try and get more photos and perhaps spot something we missed.